Hello people, have been fairly busy this year so far and so not much blogging. However I have been active in the kitchen and will be sharing some new recipes soon. Here is one for baking croissants in the microwave. I know traditionally all things bread are better done in a conventional oven or a convection oven, however having sold my oven in the previous station and now surviving with my old microwave which has not got convection I had to do some improvising. Here's how it turned out.

Ingredients

Caster Sugar - 15 gms

Yeast - 7 gms

Warm water - 40 gms

Butter - 15 gms (room temperature)

Milk - 30 gms

Flour (Maida) - 250 gms

Salt - 5 gms

Water - 80 gms

Butter - 150 gms (frozen)

Plastic wrap - either clingfilm or ziplock pouch

Method

1. Activate the yeast - Mix the 40gms warm water into the 7 gms yeast and 15 gms castor sugar. Now keep aside for about 10 minutes till you can see the bubbles form indicating yeast is active.

2. Prepare the dough - In a nice big bowl add in the 250 gms flour (maida), the 15 gms butter, the 30 gms milk and the 5 gms salt. Add the activated yeast and mix. Then add the remaining 80 gms water. Knead well for a couple of minutes. Dust with flour and put into a plastic wrap. Transfer to fridge for 10 minutes.

3. Remove dough from fridge and roll out. Rest of the steps with photos below.

Roll out your dough

4. The frozen butter 150 gms that was kept aside earlier is now cut up and placed on the rolled out dough.

Add the Butter

Make the book fold and roll again.

5. Return the dough to the fridge after adding the butter. Remove after 15 minutes, roll out, make the book folds again and return the dough to fridge. Repeat this process three times minimum to get the desired flaky pastry for the croissants.

Now place in the fridge for another 10-15 minutes

6. Shaping the croissants.

Roll out a small portion

Make the cuts and keep them small

Shape out the Croissants by making a cut at the base.

Then roll them up

Till you get the regular crab shape

Place on baking tray and into the microwave

This is what they look after 10 minutes on Combination Two (Microwave plus grill)

You can make them as large or as small as you like. Incidentally if you are going to bake them in a regular oven instead of the microwave you need to preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and then add the baking tray. Reduce it to 180 degrees Celsius and bake for 20 minutes by which time they will become golden brown like above.

Stuffed Croissants : You can add a little stuffing as you roll up the dough to make the crab shape. I have used sausages, butter, cheese and chocolate with success. You can feel free to experiment with more fillings and be sure to share how it worked out with me.